Also Remembered As: Chik-fil-A
Actually: Chick-fil-A
Chick-fil-A is a popular American fast food restaurant chain specializing in chicken sandwiches. The “fil-A” portion of the name is a play on the pronunciation of “fillet”. It gained notoriety in the press when it publicly declared it’s stance of opposing same-sex marriage.
The first Chick-fil-A opened in 1967 and the name was registered in 1963. The original and official trademark registration from 1968/9 can be viewed online here. Their name has never changed.
The first time I stumbled across this one was on the Subreddit, posted by The_JollyGreenGiant. The post received many replies and many people agreeing with the memory as suggested or with an alternate of memory of “Chik-fil-A”. As with many of these posts, there is also a few that remember as it actually is as well. Searching online for “chic-fil-a” will produce many examples of other people who have misspelled the company as well.
The post was titled “Chic-Fil-A?”, possibly already triggering the effect or confabulation in the mind of the reader; however, polling a few friends without the offering the spelling resulted in the same Chic-fil-A or Chik-fil-A erroneous spelling in all cases. In one case, I asked for a vocal recitation of how to spell it, the subject spelled out, “chick fil a”; however, after asking them to write it out, produced “chik fil a” instead. This may give us a hint into a possible explanation.
My Experience
As a full disclosure, as of writing this, I seem to remember this always spelled as Chic-Fil-A, or Chic-fil-A. At the time of reading the Subreddit posting, I don’t believe I had seen the logo, but rather heard it said or written in articles. The pronunciation has always been “Chick”, so it is quite odd that the spelling flies in the face of how we all pronounce it.
Possible Explanations
Due to the cursive, playful script presented in the logo it’s possible to lose the “k” or “c” visually on first glance. This mistake could be than carried on in the person’s memory until one day, they see evidence that this is not actually the case. Not all people claim to have seen the logo at all though (including myself and my independent subjects).
“Chic” is another unrelated word. It’s possible that our brains are swapping the word for some reason. It’s unlikely this is happening due to pronunciation as “chic” is pronounced differently than “chick” [chik] and there is no claims that people pronounced it “chic” [sheek] in any instance. Swapping the word for “Chik” seems to make more sense pronunciation wise however, although, at the same time, chik is not a word, making it also an unlikely reason.
“fil-A” might hold the key, the rest of the restaurant’s name which appears to be consistent across all the claims. The full pronunciation key is [chik-fil-ay], which is fairly similar to what some suggest being their memory on how it was spelled, although not entirely perfect with the “ay”. “fil” and “a” are non-words, forced into a hybrid amalgamation with the “chick”; is our brains also trying to apply the same logic and rules on the “chick” as well? “Chick is a word, let’s shorten it, and make it fit the rest, “Chic-fil-A” looks about right!
Some of the packaging throughout the years, including the recent years have included their logo being cropped to produce a “Chic” logo, visually. Currently, this is on their french fry packaging. This visual could be all it takes for some people to get confused on the actual spelling.
I feel like the people who make this site don’t really get what the Mandella Effect (supposedly) is. The principle is that, at a certain time or times throughout history, something has occurred that alters the past, or that certain groups of people have been transposed from one universe into a parallel one where events unfolded slightly differently. Regardless of the cause, the outcome is that certain individuals remember their original history, but find themselves living in what is to them an alternate reality.
The point of this explanation? Showing that the logo has always been the same doesn’t disprove the theory. If people are remembering correctly, but history has been altered, you would see the exact same physical evidence as if history has been constant, but people’s memories were faulty. You can’t actually “debunk” the Mandella Effect. It’s an untestable hypothesis with no means by which it can be proven one way or the other.
That is one interpretation of what the Mandela Effect is. I’ve heard of it actually being a form of government-based control and experimentation, things involving CERN, or even religious (or Satanic) causes. You will find varying ideas regarding that. Here’s mine: http://www.debunkingmandelaeffects.com/mandela-effect-introduction/
You can debunk things that are not falsifiable (which I don’t agree that all Mandela Effects actually fit that description). I’m not sure why you think you could not. It gets even muddier when (usually trolls) post so called “residue”, which are clearly fabricated and edited to misinform. Definition for debunk:
Actually it seems more like it explains why we might have thought the wrong way was the right way. The image of the fry package is a rather rationale explanation of why people made the mistake.
It’s not just people are misremembering so much is that we can put it into context in our memory. I remember when I actually thought about it, talked about it and how I thought it was weird that there isn’t a K .
Nobody actually ate “chick-fil-a” as a kid but its always been chic-fil-a on every logo I’ve seen, even during the anti gay thing. I feel like this article proves that I’m living in the reality where they screwed around with random crap to see if we would notice. I hope my other self is doing okay.
I disagree with your interpretation as to what is generally agreed upon definition of The Mandela Effect.
The Mandela Effect refers to a situation in which a large mass of people believes that an event, sometimes in great detail as the namesake example, occurred when it did not.
Now if you are attempting to debunk the phenomenon by that definition, I believe you have fallen short. Your popular culture references alone would give credence that indeed the phenomenon did exist.
If you were to go deeper as to the supposed causes of this phenomenon and attempt to debunk that, it seems to be that is a futile exercise skin, at least to be anyway, to debunking with a solipsism. It is more of a philosophy question than one of definitiveness needed to debunk.
It wasnt the logo with the k in chic it was where it said EAT MORE CHICKEN THE K WAS BACKWARDS
I’m from Chik-fil-a among other Mandela Effects & I can confirm my brain is not dumb. I remember. Don’t call me dumb. Plz? Parallel worlds do exist & we definitely planet hop on the reg.
This video shows several k’s on the cups and even on the menu in the background, if you zoom in. Is the video faked? I don’t know but it’s dated from 12 years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qjRdRdq1H4
Uh. There’s a short on YT and the girl HAS WRAPPERS to prove it was CHIC.
Dunno. and I really don’t care because there are many other things to figure out, instead.
I always assumed it was chick until one day I was sitting and looking at the wrapper and being surprised it was Chic-fil-A. I very specifically remember thinking huh that’s weird – more like “sheek” than chick.
Literally go on linkedin and people will say they work at chic-fil-a.
Im from georgia. it’s chic-fil-a.
I think it has more to do with the campaigns of Eat more chicken with a backwards k and the cows. This makes the most sense and the only time I have seen a k in chic fil but was a big push
nah bro, it WAS CHIC-FIL-A… You know how I know? I used to joke around with friends that the spelling didn’t make any goddamned sense, and that it looked like a French Restaurant spelling, and then I would proceed to make an accent like a french man, and say it over and over….
I would tell the joke ALL the time, cause I was annoying like that, thus it is BURNED into my memory. Our universe is maleable, and somehow, either naturally or because our scientists are experimenting with pandoras box- CHIC FIL A changed overnight to CHICK-FIL-A and anyone with any memory at all will attest to this.
I always thought it was Chic-Fil-A, and I even vaguely remember having a conversation about the spelling, but I think a case of mistaken memory is much more likely than parallel universes or whatever other people insist the explanation must be. Like some others have mentioned, it’s honestly downright scary that others are so confident in themselves and the infallibility of their memories that they think jumping timelines is a more plausible explanation than simply that they made a mistake about something. Human memory is notoriously unreliable, and it’s been scientifically shown that when you recall a memory, changes are made to it. In other words, the act of recall itself leaves an imprint on your memory. Through recall, small details are cast away and are replaced with a more general ‘gist’ of what happened.
Because the fallibility of human memory is a well known and documented phenomenon, and because humans are known to have mistaken memories quite commonly, this is a more plausible explanation than jumping timelines, or whatever supernatural explanation people have for it which has never been demonstrated to happen in any capacity whatsoever. People cling to the latter explanation because they don’t want to grapple with the fact that what they think are clear and perfect memories are actually distorted, faded representations of what happened years in the past, as it is to some extent for everybody. We all accept that other people make mistakes in their recall, but when YOU do it? Oh, no no no! That can’t possibly be a mistake. A supernatural phenomenon is more likely than you simply making a mistake! Give me a break.